In the 21st century, communication technology is such that information can be shared instantaneously by millions of people simultaneously, almost anywhere around the world. Communication the transfer of information from one individual or group to another, whether by speech or through the mass media of modern times is crucial to any society.
According to Marshall McLuhan, society is influenced much more by the type of the media than by the content, or the messages, which the media convey. The electronic media, according to Marshal McLuhan. are creating a Global village people throughout the world see major events unfold and hence participate in them together.
It is the Internet, at the heart of this communications revolution. With the expansion of technologies such as voice recognition, broadband transmission, web casting and cable links, the Internet became the conduit for the delivery of information, entertainment, advertising and commerce to media audiences.
Neil Postman in his book, Amusing Our-selves to ***:** Public Discourse in the Age of Show’ Business, says television presents serious issues as entertainment because the form excludes the content. As Postman states, the medium of print creates a rational population, whereas the medium of television creates an entertained one.
Robert Putnam is referring Media as a social capital to useful social networks, a sense of mutual obligation and trustworthiness, an understanding of the norms that govern effective behaviour and, in general other social resources that enable people to act effectively.
Putnam in his book Bowling Alone finds significant decline in social capital over the last few decades. TV viewing is strongly and negatively related to social trust and group membership.
Horkheimer and Adorno made an extensive study of what they called the ‘culture industry’ meaning the entertainment industries of film, TV, popular music, radio, newspapers and magazines. They argued that the production of culture had become just as standardized and dominated by the ** for profit as other industries.
Art disappears, swamped by commercialization and culture is replaced by entertainment. Jurgen Habermas has analysed the media as decay – of the ‘public sphere’. The public sphere is an arena of public debate in which issues of general concern can be discussed and opinions formed.
According to Habermas, the -public sphere developed first in the salons and coffee houses of London, Paris and other **** cities. Habermas argues that the salons were vital to the early development of democracy, for they introduced the idea of resolving political problems through public discussion.
The public sphere – at least in principle – involves individuals coming together as equals in a forum for public debate. The spread of mass media and mass entertainment causes the public sphere to become largely a sham. ‘Public opinion’ is not formed through open rational discussion, but through manipulation and control – as, for example, in advertising.
Jean Baudrillard regards impact of modem mass media as Hyper Reality The coming of the mass media, particularly electronic media such as Television, has transformed the very nature of our lives. TV does not just ‘represent’ the world to us it increasingly defines, what the world in which we live actually is Consider as an example the trial of O. J. Simpson, a celebrated court case that unfolded in Los Angeles in 1994-95.
